[WikiEN-l] "Suicide methods" article

[geni]

On 4/19/07, Doc glasgow <doc.wikipedia at ntlworld.com> wrote:
>
> There is a flaw in your moral relativism. Hijacking planes and slamming them
> into buildings, lynching blacks, screwing pre-pubescent boys, and gassing
> Jews have all be considered perfectly valid options by certain people in
> certain cultural contexts. Would we list the methods by which one might do
> such things in a morally-disinterested manner?

Certainly. Of course we would also list the techniques people have
found effective in preventing the above from happening

>Is that what NPOV demands? Is
> that responsible?

I think this falls under the security by obscurity debate.

> Further, if it is wrong to limit information on suicide because wikipedia is
> culturally amoral,  why should your proviso "without crippling yourself or
> others" stand? It too is a value-judgement? Why not include methods that are
> designed to cause maximum devastation?
>

We do [[kamikaze]].

> Yes, policy says Wikipedia is 'not censored', but our policies were never
> intended to be 'suicide pacts' that had to be followed to their logical
> conclusions no matter how absurd. Policy is no substitute for good
> judgement. And anyone who thinks we can make decisions in wikipedia without
> using 'subjectivity' just isn't living in the real world. Or perhaps they
> want to programme bots to make content decisions....
>

Orphanbot has being doing that for ages.

> Having said all of that, I'm not sure this article actually does give me
> great cause for concern. But we should retain our basic humanity and
> cultural sensitivity when we make decisions like this.

It has been said that information is not intrinsically good or evil
but rather the use.

-- 
geni